By Children aged 5-11 to be offered coronavirus vaccine
All children in the UK aged between 5-11 will be offered the coronavirus vaccine, it has been confirmed.
Experts on the government’s vaccine advisory committee issued the new guidance last night in the latest step towards the nation’s living with COVID plan.
According to Health Secretary Sajid Javid, the vaccine will become available on the NHS in April.
He called the update “safe and effective” but “non-urgent”.
Javid continued: “It is something that’s there as an option for parents and they should decide for themselves whether it’s an offer that they want to take up, and all the information they need would be made available for them.”
“Children without underlying health conditions are at low risk of serious illness from COVID-19 and the priority remains for the NHS to offer vaccines and boosters to adults and vulnerable young people, as well as to catch-up with other childhood immunisation programmes.”
A spokesperson for the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation added that most five to 11-year-olds are “generally at very low risk of serious illness from the virus”, but that “very small number of children who get infected do develop severe disease”.
Eligible children whose parents consent to them having the vaccine will be set to receive the Pfizer vaccine issued in two doses spaced 8 weeks apart.
According to data obtained by Sky News, around 500,000 vulnerable children aged 5-11 were eligible for their first vaccine in January.
Almost six million more children across the UK will now be eligible.
Will you take up the opportunity to vaccinate your child? Let us know!
